The Curse of the Blue Figurine

by John Bellairs

  Johnny stayed home for the day. He did picture puzzles and read and listened to the radio. That evening he took some pills that Dr. Schermerhorn had given him, and he slept soundly all night. The next morning he felt much better and was ready to go back to school. But when he got downstairs, he found that he had another doctor's appointment. That morning he was going to go down to Cambridge with the professor. The professor did not tell Johnny that Dr. Melkonian was a psychiatrist. He was afraid that this might scare Johnny off. So he told him that the doctor was a hypnotist. He would help Johnny to relax and sleep soundly at night. Johnny had heard of hypnotists, of course. He had always kind of wanted to be hypnotized, just to see what it was like. So when he got in the car to drive down with the professor, he was a little afraid, but mainly he was eager and curious. In the back of his mind, though, like a dark cloud on the horizon, was the other appointment that he had: at midnight, on the seventeenth of May, in Duston Park. It would be scary, he told himself, but it was something he had to do. At least afterward he would be rid of the ring and the blue figurine. And maybe someday, far in the future, he would sit around and tell his grandchildren about the run-in he had had with a real live ghost.

  Later that morning Johnny found himself sitting in a rather luxurious waiting room. There was a red Oriental rug on the floor, and the two big couches had puffy, hissy cushions of chocolate-colored leather. Near the door was a bookcase full of books in green and red morocco leather bindings. The books were about spiritualism and the occult, for the most part. While they waited the professor leafed through the books, and now and then he would say things like "Rubbish—utter rubbish!" or "My God, and people actually believe stuff like this!" Eventually the door of the inner office opened, and Dr. Melkonian stepped out. He was about as tall as the professor, and he had jet-black, greasy hair that ran in ripples across his head. His beard was also black, and well trimmed, and his lips were rosy red. He wore a light-gray cutaway and dark-gray pinstriped trousers and a double-breasted waistcoat and an ascot with a pearl stickpin. He looked like somebody who was getting ready to go to a wedding.

  "Ah!" he said, nodding politely and smiling. "You're here—good! Please come in."

  The professor and Johnny followed Dr. Melkonian into his book-lined inner office. They sat down in two easy chairs, and the doctor sat down behind his desk.

  "Now then," said the doctor as he picked up his dagger-shaped letter opener and began to play with it, "what seems to be the trouble?"

  The professor explained. He said that Johnny was very nervous and had had trouble sleeping. Dr. Schermerhorn had examined him and had found nothing wrong—nothing physical, that is—and so they had come here, hoping that Dr. Melkonian would be able to give help of a somewhat different sort.

  Dr. Melkonian smiled suavely and turned to Johnny. He folded his hands on his desk, sat back, and asked Johnny a couple of questions. Then he took a pair of collapsible pince-nez glasses out of his desk drawer, opened them up, and peered hard at Johnny through them. Then he got up and walked around to the other side of the desk and stood over Johnny, stroking his beard and sizing Johnny up through the glasses, as if he were going to paint his picture. Finally Dr. Melkonian paced back and forth a bit, and then, halting abruptly, he picked up the beater of a small bronze gong that stood on top of a glazed bookcase. He hit the gong and stood listening as the deep vibrating tones died away. Then he asked the professor to go out into the waiting room and wait.

  Time passed. The professor smoked half a pack of Balkan Sobranie cigarettes, and he read quickly through several of the books in the bookcase. Finally the door of the inner office opened, and Dr. Melkonian appeared. He motioned for the professor to come in.

  "Please sit down," said the doctor. "Would you care for a cigarette?" He held out a flat gray tin box of Balkan Sobranie cigarettes.

  The professor grinned, and he took one. "So you smoke these filthy things too! It's my favorite brand!"

  The doctor seemed pleased. "Ah! You are a man of distinction and culture. Of course I could tell that the moment you walked in. You are a professor—an intellectual. I like intellectuals. By the way, in case you are wondering where young John is, he is asleep on a bed in my examining room. I gave him a dose of sodium pentothal to ease him into hypnosis, and he's sleeping off the effects." Dr. Melkonian looked thoughtful and shook his head. "My, my! His case is a strange one! I've never handled one quite like it." He paused and looked hard at the professor. "You're a friend of his, aren't you? I mean, you're his special friend, I gather. Isn't that so?" The professor nodded.

  "And," the doctor went on, "you know him pretty well. Eh?"

  Again the professor nodded.

  "Well, then, tell me: Does he lie much?"

  The question was so unexpected that the professor laughed. Then he shook his head. "No," he said firmly. "No. He doesn't lie much. Why do you ask?"

  "Because his story's a real doozer, that's why. Actually I would agree with your impression of him. He seems like a pretty truthful kid. And he seems to really believe what he told me when I put him under hypnosis." Dr. Melkonian puffed at his cigarette. He stared at the green desk blotter and drew circles on it with his finger. Then he looked up suddenly. "He thinks he's met the ghost of a priest who used to live in your city."

  The professor's mouth dropped open. Then he slapped his forehead with the palm of his hand. "Oh, no! Good gravy, I should have known! This is all my fault! I told him that stupid, idiotic tale about Father Baart, and he believed it!"

  Dr. Melkonian gave the professor an irritated glance. "My dear sir, this is more than believing a story. Johnny has been having delusions—hallucinations. He actually thinks he's met with this ghost. And the ghost gave him a magic ring, and there's a blue statue mixed in with the whole mess somehow. What he told me just sort of came tumbing out, and it was all a bit confused. Anyway, he thinks he has to show up in this park next... next Friday, I think it is. If he doesn't, then bad things will happen to him. The ghost will kill him."

  The professor looked worried. An odd thought had come into his mind. He examined the burning end of his cigarette and wrinkled up his nose. "You don't think..." he said hesitantly, "you don't think there might possibly be a ghost, do you?"

  Dr. Melkonian looked at the professor incredulously for an instant. Then he burst into loud, uproarious laughter. "Oh, that's a good one!" he exclaimed, still laughing. "A ghost? Good night, man, what century are you living in? Ghosts went out when the electric light was invented! Ha-haaa! Ghosts! My, how you do run on!"

  Dr. Melkonian went on chortling. Meanwhile the professor folded his arms across his chest and glowered crabbily. The psychiatrist's laughter died away when he saw the way the professor was looking at him. He picked up his letter opener and began nervously fiddling with it. It was almost as if he were going to use it to defend himself in case the professor sprang at him.

  "Now, listen," said the professor, still glaring fiercely, "I am a cranky old man, and I don't enjoy being made fun of. If you think ghosts are such a great big fat joke, then what are all those ghost books doing out in your waiting room? Eh?"

  Dr. Melkonian smiled and waved his hand airily. "Oh, they are there to amuse my patients. If you're a psychiatrist, you get a lot of nuts as patients, and nutty people often believe in ghosts. But you don't seem nutty to me. That's why I was surprised at what you said."

  "I'm not nutty," said the professor through his teeth. "I'm as sane as you are, and possibly even saner."

  "All right, all right, you're sane!" muttered the doctor irritably. "Let's change the subject! I believe you told me over the phone that Johnny lost his mother recently. Is that correct?"

  "Yes. And, in a way, he also lost his father when he was hauled back into the Air Force to be a jet pilot. And these two things, to my way of thinking, may have—"

  "Yes, yes!" cut in Dr. Melkonian with an impatient gesture. "I was about to say something like that myself. It seems to me likely that Johnny's delusi
ons may be caused by the losses and dislocations that have occurred in his life recently." The doctor coughed self-importantly and picked up a pen. He began to doodle on the green blotter. "Now, what I would recommend," he went on, "is this: First I think we should explain to him, as best we can, that his mind has been playing tricks on him. Then I think you should go with him to that park—what was its name? Dusty Park? Is that right?"

  "Duston Park," said the professor. "It's named for— but never mind. Go on."

  "Ah, yes. Duston Park. Well, I think you should go there with him. He should keep his 'appointment' with this idiotic nonexistent ghost. Then, when no ghost shows up, and nothing hideous or nasty happens to him, he'll feel better. After that, as soon as school is out, I think he ought to be gotten out of town. Can his grandparents afford to take him on a vacation?"

  The professor frowned and shook his head sadly. "No. They're as poor as church mice—poorer even. They—" He stopped because a thought had struck him. He snapped his fingers. "By God!" he exclaimed. "But I can take him on a trip! I'd love to! How about that? Eh? Eh?"

  Dr. Melkonian grinned and nodded approvingly. "I think that would be just peachy-dandy. After the experience he's had—or thinks he's had—he needs to get away. Good. Excellent. I'm glad you'll be able to take him. Oh, by the way, I have something that belongs to him. A ring. It was on his finger, and he told me—under hypnosis—that the ghost of Father Baart had given him the ring. There's a letter B under the stone, and I suppose you could imagine that that stood for Baart. At any rate, according to Johnny the ghost had told him that he couldn't take the ring off. He would die if he did. Well, I took it off while he was asleep, and needless to say, he didn't die." Dr. Melkonian paused and dug his hand into his coat pocket. He fished out the ring and handed it to the professor. "Here. Do you know anything about it?"

  The professor took the ring and turned it back and forth, examining it. The small yellow stone sparkled fitfully in the lamplight. "No," he said slowly. "No, I don't know a blessed thing about it. I saw it on Johnny's finger one day, and I asked him where he had gotten it, and he said that his grandfather had given it to him. Then I asked his grandfather about it, and he said that Johnny had told him that I gave it to him. And from all this I concluded that Johnny had gotten the ring in some weird way and didn't want to tell anyone how." The professor flipped the ring up in the air and caught it. "I can't imagine that he stole it. I mean, he's not the thieving kind, and anyway, it doesn't look like it'd be worth stealing. The stone looks like a piece of bottle glass, and the body of the ring seems to have been made out of a rusty—"

  At this point the door of the examining room opened, and Johnny came stumbling out. His hair was mussed, and his glasses were stuck on crooked, and his eyes were heavy with sleep.

  "Hi," he said shyly. "Can I come out now?"

  Dr. Melkonian asked Johnny to sit down in one of the easy chairs. And then he and the professor had a long talk with him. They explained to Johnny that Mr. Beard —otherwise known as Father Baart—was just a figment of his imagination. When Johnny heard this, he was shocked and bewildered. And then he got angry.

  "Whaddaya mean, I didn't see him!" Johnny burst out. "He was right there in front of me, just like you are!"

  Dr. Melkonian smiled blandly and folded his hands on the desk. "Yes, yes, young man," he said smoothly. "You saw him, all right—only he wasn't there. He existed only in your mind. You've heard of mirages, haven't you? Well, Mr. Beard was like a mirage. You've been through a great deal of sorrow lately, young man. And sorrow can make us do strange things and... and see strange things. Please try to understand. I'm not saying that you're crazy or that you are lying. I'm merely trying to help you understand what happened to you."

  Johnny was stunned. He didn't know what to say. "But... but..." he stammered, "he... he gave me a ring..." Johnny looked down at his left hand. The ring was gone! Immediately he felt panic. What would happen to him now?

  The professor held up the ring. "Dr. Melkonian took this off your finger while you were asleep," he said gently. "And don't worry—you're not going to die. There's no ghost, and no curse on you, or on that stupid blue hunk of crockery. So relax. Everything's going to be all right."

  Johnny was not so sure about that. Dr. Melkonian and the professor talked very seriously with him for a long time. They argued and wheedled and were terribly logical as they tried to prove to Johnny that the ghost was just imaginary. Johnny resisted. Like most people, he resented it when somebody told him that he had not seen something that he really thought he had seen.

  "But what about the ring?" he said insistently. "I mean, I didn't make it up. It's right there on the desk!"

  "I know," said Dr. Melkonian patiently. "But you may have found the ring somewhere. Maybe you found it in the church that night when you thought you ran into Mr. Beard for the first time. Don't get me wrong. I'm not accusing you of lying. Mr. Beard must have seemed very, very real to you, as real as the professor here, or as me. But hallucinations are that way. You can't tell them from the real thing—you really, truly can't!"

  Johnny was beginning to feel desperate. "But he talked to me! I heard him!"

  Dr. Melkonian was not impressed. "Auditory illusions are common," he said. "Haven't you ever imagined that you heard somebody calling your name?"

  "Okay, okay! But what about the time I told you about, when the ring flashed and this big wind knocked Eddie Tompke for a loop? How about that, huh?"

  "Ring stones flash in the sunlight sometimes," said the doctor smoothly. "And as for the sudden wind... well, when you live in New England, you learn to expect things like that. The sea causes violent and unexpected changes in the weather."

  "But Eddie was scared! He really was!"

  Dr. Melkonian smiled faintly. "I'm sure he was. Something startling like that, a wind strong enough to knock you off your pins... well, it would have scared me too. But it's a natural occurrence, not a supernatural one! Can't you see that?"

  And so it went. After an hour of this sort of thing Johnny was beginning to have doubts about what he had seen and heard. He was still not entirely convinced, but he did have doubts. To tell the truth, he wanted to have doubts. If Father Baart was imaginary, that meant that he was not being threatened with death and destruction. On the other hand, the whole experience had been so real, so very real. Johnny's mind began to whirl. Nothing made sense anymore. Was Dr. Melkonian real? Was the professor real? Was anything real?

  After the session in Dr. Melkonian's office Johnny rode home to Duston Heights in the professor's car. On the way the professor asked Johnny if he would like to go on a little trip with him after school was over. He explained that they would be going up into the White Mountains to sight-see and hike around, and maybe even do a little mountain climbing. Johnny was delighted by this idea. He had seen pictures of the White Mountains of New Hampshire, but he had never actually been up there on a visit. The trip sounded great. But now his mind shifted to a totally different subject: What was he going to do about the meeting that he was supposed to have—or wasn't supposed to have—with Mr. Beard in Duston Park next Friday night? The professor, glancing sideways, saw the look on Johnny's face, and he read his thoughts.

  "Are you worried about your midnight rendezvous?" he asked with a slight smile.

  Johnny nodded glumly. "Yeah. What... whaddaya think I oughta do?"

  The professor's smile got broader and more confident. "Dr. Melkonian and I discussed this," he said briskly, "and we think that you should keep this so-called appointment. I'll go with you, and if a ghost shows up... well, I've always kind of had a hankering to see one. Are you game? Are you still willing to go?"

  Johnny nodded. And so that was settled.

  When they got back to Fillmore Street, the professor had a little talk with the Dixons. He explained to them as well as he could what Dr. Melkonian had said about Johnny and his problems. They were suspicious because they didn't like psychiatrists. They thought psychiatrists were
like witch doctors, and they also thought that only crazy people believed in the things that psychiatrists said. But they were glad to hear that Johnny was not seriously ill, or ready for the insane asylum. And they thought that the trip to the White Mountains was really a very wonderful idea.

  Several days passed. One afternoon when the Dixons were out shopping, the professor sneaked over and took away the blue figurine and the hollow book that held it. He had told Johnny that he was going to do this, and Johnny agreed that it was probably a good idea. Meanwhile Johnny went about his usual routine. He felt much, much better than he had felt in a long time. He slept soundly at night, and he did not hear any strange noises. He felt as if a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders. Naturally he was still a bit worried about Friday night. He did not know what was going to happen—not really. But, he reminded himself, the ring was gone from his finger, and he was still among the living. That was an encouraging thought, to say the least.

  Friday night came, and it was pouring rain outside. The professor, umbrella in hand, met Johnny at the front door of his house at a quarter to twelve. Off they went, through the wind and wet, and finally they arrived in Duston Park. They stood around by Hannah Duston's statue and waited. The streetlight burned placidly, and the bronze Hannah hovered as menacingly as ever. The rain pelted down and made a racket on the stiff cloth of the professor's umbrella. Across the street the columned church loomed ghostly and white, thrusting its tall spire up into the night sky. Time passed. Fifteen minutes, half an hour. Nobody came.

  The professor unbuttoned his raincoat, reached into his jacket pocket, and pulled out his watch. He glanced at it, sniffed, and looked around.

  "Well," he said dryly, "Shakespeare would say that this was a night when the sheeted dead might squeak and gibber in the streets. But they ain't out, and on a night like this I don't blame them. No, sir, I don't blame them at all." He put his watch back in his pocket and peered owlishly around. Then he folded his arms, leered jauntily, and began to whistle. It was an old tune, "The Ghost of John." After he had whistled it through once, he sang softly: